Where those associated with Western films from around the world are laid to rest.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

RIP Lauren Bacall

RIP Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall, the film and stage
actress and model who was known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry
looks, died Tuesday at the age of 89.

The celebrity news website TMZ quoted family as saying
that she died at her home of a massive stroke. A separate report from cable
news outlet MSNBC always quoted a family source as confirming the death.

Bacall first emerged as a leading lady in the Humphrey
Bogart film To Have and Have Not (1944) and continued on in the film noir
genre, with appearances in Bogart movies The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage
(1947), and Key Largo (1948), as well as comedic roles in How to Marry a
Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory
Peck.

Bacall also worked on Broadway in musicals, gaining Tony
Awards for Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981. Her performance in
the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) earned her a Golden Globe Award and
an Academy Award nomination.

In 1999, Bacall was ranked #20 of the 25 actresses on the
100 Stars list by the American Film Institute. In 2009, she was selected by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Academy Honorary
Award "in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion
pictures."

Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske in the Bronx, New York,
the only child of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a secretary who later legally
changed her surname to Bacall, and William Perske, who worked in sales; both of
her parents were Jewish. Her mother emigrated from Romania through Ellis
Island, and her father was born in New Jersey, to Polish parents.

About Me

Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1946 I have a BA degree in American History from Cal St. Northridge. I've been researching the American West and western films since the early 1980s and visiting filming sites in Spain and the U.S.A. Elected a member of the Spaghetti Western Hall of Fame 2010.